1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone communication system providing at least voice mail message service and, more particularly, to a voice mail system providing information on the length of messages for a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are a number of telephone communication systems available offering information services to users. Many of these systems store and forward voice mail messages. Examples of such systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,371,752; 4,580,012; 4,581,486; 4,585,906; and 4,602,129, all assigned to VMX, Inc. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,371,752 was originally assigned to ECS Telecommunications, Inc.). Other systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,029,199 and 5,193,110 which are assigned to Boston Technology, Inc. and are incorporated herein by reference. These systems are connected to a central office of a local telephone company or to a private branch exchange or other system handling calls for a large number of telephones. When one of the telephones serviced by the central office or other system is not answered, the calling party is given an opportunity to leave a telephone message which is stored for later reproduction by the user of the called telephone. These systems are capable of storing messages of considerable length, an hour or more, but a typical message is much shorter.
When a user requests information about messages stored by a voice mail message system, the number of calls is typically reported and the user is given access to the calls to reproduce, delete, continue to store, forward to another user, etc. However, no information is provided to the user regarding the length of the messages and thus the user has little choice but to listen to at least part of all of the messages and try to guess how much longer each message will last.